


What Money Can't Buy

by nonky



Category: Nancy Drew (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21589399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonky/pseuds/nonky
Summary: He felt like he was made of excuses, but money could shut and lock doors as easily as it could open them. He'd gone to the schools chosen for him, to mingle with the people who were destined to be his competition. There were lists of suitable girls he could marry, based on income. Ryan knew he'd made some of his own choices, but he'd had to pay for them in elusive ways that built up interest bank accounts didn't cover.General spoilers for the relationship between Tiffany and Ryan Hudson.
Relationships: Ryan Hudson/Tiffany Hudson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8
Collections: Nancy Drew TV Series (2019)





	What Money Can't Buy

The cemetery was supposed to be peaceful, and he'd wanted to come early in the day. It felt more private, though it did have an atmosphere of moody gloom under a foggy cover. 

Ryan Hudson looked at the bouquet in his hands, and wondered if he should have brought a vase, too. He didn't know how to be a widower. It seemed like nothing had stopped or even slowed down enough to let him figure it out. He had put his wedding ring back on, and he was actually faithful to his wife now that she wasn't around to see it. 

He didn't know if she'd appreciate it. Tiffany was always hard to figure about certain things she didn't share with him. Maybe she'd been relieved he found someone else. 

He walked through the rows of markers, squinting tired eyes at the low stones. He had known the numbers given to her plot when he paid for it, but the details of the funeral were blurring quickly. It felt like he was nearly where he needed to be -

His body jolted and he tripped over something that bruised his foot. Ryan felt stupid for it, but he came up with his fists out, ready to fight. He locked eyes with a pretty woman near his own age, sitting on the bench that had just taken him down. 

"Oh! I'm sorry, sorry! Jesus!" He opened his hands and bent to pick up the flowers for Tiffany. "I didn't see you there."

She shook her head sadly, giving him a sympathetic head tilt as she looked at the flowers. 

"I'm sorry for my language. I wasn't - I didn't think I'd see anyone here. I guess mornings are sort of the most private," Ryan said, fumbling. "I didn't mean to intrude."

Her body language was very expressive, inviting as she indicated the other side of the bench. He looked around awkwardly. It seemed unbearably rude to just ignore a lone woman at a grave offering him a seat. 

"Sure, thank you. I knocked the wind out of myself." 

Ryan sat down at a polite distance. The last thing he needed were paparazzi shots of him wooing another woman when he was supposed to be laying flowers on his wife's grave. 

He set the flowers down between them. The decorative paper wrapper was rumpled, and the careful arrangement of blooms was lopsided. The woman picked it up and started gently fixing it up. 

"Thanks," he said, sheepishly. "I, uh, don't know what I'm doing. It's only been a few weeks since my wife . . . Well, I think you probably know who I am."

Her eyes were warm as she nodded, still restoring the bouquet to a pretty, careful assortment of blooms where each colour seemed to have a place to be. 

"It sucks when people are blaming you for something you didn't do," Ryan sighed. "I mean, most of these townies don't believe I have enough brainpower to tie my own shoes. At the same time, they think I might have plotted to murder my wife. I can't be both of those things. Either I'm a rich, slacker idiot, or a criminal genius."

He knew his own shortcomings. He wasn't going to win any Nobel prize, but he wasn't a complete moron. And if he'd really needed his freedom, he would have divorced and let the lawyers work it out.

"I get why people might think I had reason to kill my wife, but the way it happened is beyond my abilities. I would have not only have to arrange a meeting with three associates on short notice, at a restaurant I've never been that should have been closed early that night, I needed to time it exactly to a fireworks display and a power outage during a fog bank. I don't know how to bring down a power grid, and I've never studied meteorology."

There was a grass stained smear on his pants and he took out a handkerchief to blot it. He still felt like a sloppy child, especially in his parents' company. Celia was always looking at him with fond pity, like a favourite dog who couldn't stop ruining the rug. Everett hated him, and Ryan had never figured out how to fix it. 

"We were in love once. I know everyone looks at the stuff more recently and the spark wasn't in anything between us. The first few years were good, but people can't keep themselves from saying what they think. She couldn't help listening. I poured myself doubles too early in the day. We had just enough money to have too much free time and too many people trying to help us spend."

The flowers looked like new, and he took them back. Ryan ran his palm across the soft petals, his eyes resting from the glaring blandness of the fog to soak up the bright colours. His companion had turned her legs on the bench toward him, and she gave him a little bob of her head that made him want to share the things he'd been holding in. 

"I noticed Tiffany was in trouble," he told her, feeling both pathetic and also relieved. "I saw the pills and the sleepless weeks. I asked her about it, but what she told me was crazy. She kept talking about ghosts and feeling the weight of eyes on her. I didn't understand and eventually she refused to tell me anything. I checked out. I cheated. I even thought about asking for a divorce if she was so miserable and I was so miserable watching it happen. But I didn't want her to die."

Her long hair was hidden under a scarf, but the woman didn't have a coat. She shivered as he stopped speaking, and Ryan flicked a hand in front of his own face. 

"I'm sorry, I'm keeping you. You don't even have a coat. Here, please."

He set the flowers down and took off his jacket, standing to walk around to let her put her arms through the sleeves. She looked over her shoulder with a little clasp to his fingers before he pulled away. Her hand was freezing, and Ryan congratulated himself on finding some of his rich boy etiquette lessons. 

She patted the bench again, looking at him expectantly, as if his story was one she wanted to hear an ending. He sat down and noticed she was very pale, even for the overcast little town.

"We didn't share anything. Everything she liked I resented. Everything I tried to do with my money was frivolous. I mean, I don't want to be poor. I don't know how to be poor, but I couldn't get any credit for trying to work, either. If I had aspirations, I was playing at being a businessman. If I failed, I was too stupid, and if I succeeded it was because I had the family money to keep me solvent. I get mockery for trying to become a self-made man, but no one likes the man my family made me before I was old enough to know better."

He felt like he was made of excuses, but money could shut and lock doors as easily as it could open them. He'd gone to the schools chosen for him, to mingle with the people who were destined to be his competition. There were lists of suitable girls he could marry, based on income. Ryan knew he'd made some of his own choices, but he'd had to pay for them in elusive ways that built up interest bank accounts didn't cover.

"Is this all I can do for her now," he asked, touching the flowers. "Do I pick at the scab and insist Tiffany was murdered? I don't want to believe someone wanted to kill her. It's tragic she died like that, but thinking of her being murdered is devastating. And if she was murdered I'm back to my old problem of being somehow unable to gain anything from her death but a suspect in it anyway."

A slender hand rested on his arm, the weight of it barely there before it was gone again, back in her lap. He smiled at the woman, feeling his eyes dampen. He hadn't thought the grave would make him emotional this way. The fact he couldn't even find Tiffany made him feel particularly useless.

"This town doesn't let you grow. It wants to stamp you with a description everyone memorizes. You can't do better if no one is willing to count it. I used to think I'd be facing it with at least one person who cared about who I really am, but Tiffany didn't trust me. She wanted to leave me. She was arranging secret caches of money and property everywhere, as if she worried I'd stop supporting her one day."

He had the means to stop it, and had let her do what she wanted. She'd deserved some of his money after his behaviour. Ryan knew he wasn't a good husband, but he wasn't an abusive bully. If she needed to go, she could have made a new life. 

It was warming slowly, the sunrise finally burning off the overnight fog. He squinted up into the sky, raising his hand to shade his eyes. Maybe now that it was daylight he could get some sleep without jarring awake in vague terror. 

"The best part is now that I'm alone, I hear things. I'm the one wandering the house in the dark, tracking noises. I'm the one seeing things that scare me. And if I say anything, people tell me I'm grieving. They won't understand," he said, looking at his feet getting soaked in his expensive but inadequate shoes. "So I'm exactly where Tiffany was before she died. I'm isolated and I'm worried that anything I do doesn't work. If there are ghosts, real ghosts, is it Tiffany? Does she blame me? Does she think I killed her?"

The woman waited until he wiped his eyes and cleared his throat awkwardly. She reached over and touched his wedding band gently, and then indicated her own modest ring on her left hand. She clasped her hands, right over left, and pressed them both to her heart. 

That got him going again, and Ryan let out a few audible sobs he muffled with his hand. By the time he pulled himself together, it was full daylight. The fog was gone, leaving a lush surface of emerald grass and surprisingly pretty trees under a bright sky. He looked up and felt his breathing ease. 

He was even grinning a little bit as he turned back to his kind listener, and stiffened to see he was alone on the bench. Ryan stood up, looking around. He hadn't felt her get up, or heard any footsteps on the wet grass. He realized she hadn't said a word the whole time, even if he'd been able to tell what her reactions meant as if she'd spoken. She'd exuded a compassionate sympathy. 

He looked at the flowers, and felt the smoothed rumples in the paper wrapper. It had definitely been dropped and then fixed. He turned in a circle, feeling very strange. Surely that woman had been real. Maybe she couldn't speak, or even hear what he'd been saying. He'd been ranting at some poor, deaf woman just trying to visit a loved one's grave. She was still wearing his jacket. She'd touched him and he'd felt it.

In the distance, he thought he recognized Tiffany's headstone. He started walking over slowly, nervous. The slab of marble was so permanent, and he set the flowers on top of it. 

"Hi Baby," he said, folding his hands. "I, uh, brought you flowers. I should have done that more when you could - I'm sorry I wasn't better. This wasn't anything I wanted."

After a few minutes of standing silently, he took another look around and couldn't see anyone. Ryan stepped back gingerly and bowed his head to the grave. He didn't feel better, but at least he'd tried this. He wasn't sure if it had done anything. 

As he was walking back to his car, a flicker of movement came from his left. He spun toward it like he was expecting to have to fight for his life, but it was just a bit of fabric draped over something stationary. It was dark, and looked like his jacket. 

He debated making a run for the car, but for a small town Horseshoe Bay had a huge cemetery. He made himself walk over with a lot of careful skirting of graves and looking around bigger trees. Ryan walked along the side of the grave, edging up to pull his jacket off the headstone. He read the first name before the rest was uncovered, and hugged the fabric to his chest when he saw the full name. 

It was Kathryn Drew, her death date barely six months ago, and a tiny portrait inset in the stone above her name. He leaned in and realized he had recognized her just a little, maybe from seeing her around but definitely from all the photos in the Drew home. 

He didn't know what to think of his sanity, but he was trying to be a better man. Ryan took a deep breath and said, "Kate, thank you."

Giving an odd little wave he speed walked back to his car and drove away to find a drink.


End file.
